Making it readable: borders, bold, and not much else
Okay sooo. We've got a sheet with real data in it now, filled in properly, no typos sitting around unfixed. Today we make it look like something you'd actually want to open again.
Here's the thing. People think formatting a sheet means making it pretty. That's not really it. Formatting means making it readable at a glance, so you don't have to squint and trace your finger across the screen to figure out which number goes with which label. That's the whole job. If it looks nice along the way, great, but that's a side effect.
Bold, for exactly one thing: headers
Your column headers, the row across the top that says what each column is, those should be bold. Select that row, hit the bold button or Ctrl+B (Cmd+B if you're on a Mac), done.
That's basically it for bold. I know that sounds like I'm underselling it, but I mean it. If you bold your headers and nothing else, your eye already knows where to land when you open the sheet. If you bold half your numbers too, or random cells you want to "highlight," it stops meaning anything. Bold is for orientation, not decoration.
Borders, used sparingly
Borders are good for one thing mainly: separating a total row from the data above it. Say you've got a list of expenses and then a "Total" row at the bottom. Put a line above that row, a top border, so your eye knows "okay, everything above this line got added up into this number." Select the row, find the border tool, pick "top border." Small move, big payoff.
You do not need a border around every single cell. I see people grid out an entire sheet like it's a form to be printed and mailed in, and it just makes everything harder to read, not easier. Less is doing more here.
Column width, the unglamorous fix
If a column is too narrow, your text gets cut off or your numbers show up as ##### (that's Excel and Sheets both telling you "not enough room, not an error"). Double-click the line between two column letters at the top and it'll auto-size to fit. That one trick fixes probably 80% of "why does my sheet look broken" moments.
One color, if you want it, and only for meaning
If you're going to use a fill color, background color on a cell, use it to mean something. Orange for "coming up," green for "paid," whatever your own system is. Don't use six colors because they're pretty. Once color has a job, it's useful. Once it's just decoration, it's noise, and now you have to remember what noise means, which defeats the point.
The opinion part
Not gonna lie, I have a whole thing about over-formatting. People build these elaborate color-coded, bordered, fifteen-category masterpieces and then abandon them in three weeks because keeping it up became its own job. Same instinct as the budget-category thing. You do not need forty categories and you do not need every cell dressed up. A sheet you'll actually keep using beats a sheet that looks like it belongs in a magazine. Plain and readable wins over fancy every time.
A quick real-life detour
This actually reminds me of a Relief Society activity a while back. I offered to make a sign-up sheet for something, just a simple list, who's bringing what. And of course I couldn't help myself, I ended up with tabs, headers, the whole thing, way more than a sign-up sheet needed. But here's what happened: three different people saw it and asked me to make one for THEIR thing before the night was even over.
And the reason it worked wasn't the tabs. It was that you could look at it for two seconds and know exactly what was going on. Bold headers, one clean list, nothing fighting for your attention. That's the actual lesson buried in that story. The formatting people responded to wasn't fancy, it was just clear.
Try this at home
Open a sheet you've already built in this course. Bold your header row. Add one top border above a totals row if you've got one. Widen any column that's cutting off text. Stop there. Resist the urge to color everything just because you can, that's tomorrow's problem if it's a problem at all.
Before next time
Look at your sheet from across the room, or squint at it a little. If you can still tell what's what, you're done formatting. If you can't, that's the only reason to add more. See you next time. - C